With the expected release of Apple's new MacBook Pro lineup on Thursday, onlookers have been inundated with rumored hardware specifications and new features. AppleInsider offers a recap of what's expected in the imminent product refresh slated for tomorrow.

Sandy Bridge

Apple's new MacBook Pro models will sport the latest-generation processors from Intel, known as Sandy Bridge. The chipmaker has called Sandy Bridge the "biggest advance in computing performance and capabilities over any other previous generation."

The new notebooks are expected to feature Core i7, Core i5 and Core i3 processors from Intel, with leaked specifications showing that the 13-inch MacBook Pro will sport a 2.3GHz Core i5 with integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000.

The timing of the release of new MacBook Pros came into question earlier this year, when Intel revealed it discovered a design error in its new Sandy Bridge processors. Specifically, the chipsets accompanying the processors, known as Cougar Point, were found to have issues with four serial-ATA ports for connecting devices like hard disk drives.

A source informed AppleInsider that the error did in fact disrupt Apple's plans, but the impact was largely immaterial and caused only minor delays.

A full comparison of Sandy Bridge processors rumored to make their way into the next generation of MacBook Pros is included below:

Integrated, ATI graphics options

Leaked specifications show that Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro will not feature a discrete graphics processor. Instead, it will rely on the integrated GPU found in Intel's new Sandy Bridge processors, which features 384MB of shared memory.

Back in December it was claimed that Apple's larger, high-end MacBook Pro models, with screen sizes of 15 and 17 inches, will rely on graphics processors from AMD. It was said that none of the new MacBook Pros will feature Nvidia graphics.

Thunderbolt, Light Peak

A Thursday debut for hardware is unique for Apple, but it's possible that the date was chosen in part because it's when Intel plans to formally debut its new Light Peak technology for high-speed data connections. Viewed as a successor to USB, the first generation of Light Peak cables and devices are expected to be able to support 10Gbps data transfers over copper wire.

Leaked photos of Apple's next-generation MacBook Pros show that the devices will offer a unique implementation of Light Peak dubbed "Thunderbolt." Apple's Thunderbolt connector is expected to be the same shape as existing Mini DisplayPort devices, but in addition to audio and video, it will also offer high-speed data transfer.

So far, none of the leaked photos give any indication of a solid-state boot drive, at least in the 13-inch model. But there have been a handful of rumors suggesting that Apple could preinstall Mac OS X on an integrated high-speed 16GB flash memory-based boot disk.

It was also said that Apple will offer customers a build-to-order configuration of the new MacBook Pro models, replacing the SuperDrive with a solid-state drive.

The lack of evidence of a flash boot drive in photos of the 13-inch model also does not align with a separate report, which claimed that the alleged hybrid solid-state configuration would be used for Mac OS X startup even in base models of the Mac lineup.

End of the line for white MacBook?

With the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air priced at $999 and selling strongly, it has been rumored that Apple could discontinue its entry-level polycarbonate MacBook, which carries the same $999 price.

Last fall, Apple redesigned its MacBook Air and added the second screen size of 11.6 inches, in addition to the 13.3-inch model. The diminutive notebook was instantly in demand, and it features only solid-state flash memory for its internal storage.

Trackpad, displays, pricing and more

Reports have also claimed that the new MacBook Pro hardware will feature larger glass trackpads. This change could be made in anticipation of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, scheduled for release this summer.

Apple has revealed its plans to bring iOS features to the Mac with the release of Lion, and among those features are new multi-touch gestures. The expansion of the trackpad area could make invoking those gestures easier for some users.

Retailer Best Buy over the weekend also over the weekend listed five new MacBook Pro models and SKUs. The listings suggest that Apple will continue to offer two configurations of the 13-inch MacBooks, two 15-inch models, and a single 17-inch configuration.

Leaked specifications from the 13-inch MacBook Pro also showed that the notebook will feature a "high-definition camera" for FaceTime video chat, suggesting the forward-facing lens above the computer's display could be upgraded. The 13.3-inch display was also listed as having a resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels.

Those same specs also show the notebook with an SDXC port for the latest Secure Digital cards. SDXC supports cards with storage up to 2TB of data.

For more, see AppleInsider's comprehensive coverage of the MacBook Pro.

It's interesting to note that the displayport 1.2 standard actually supports data bit rate of 20Gbps according to wikipedia (if I understand the article correctly). So, thunderbolt may turn out to be a 20Gbps, not a 10Gbps one. That's lotsa data!!

I think I am going to be a little disappointed tomorrow when I go pick up my new MBP 17". Timing worked out perfectly that I just switched jobs and am now finally able to buy what ever I want for work so the new MBP 17" is going to be it.

Wish List..
1) new thin Liquid Metal Case ---- chance of happening close to none.
2) All SSD drives - It will be nice if the OS is but would also like my applications to be as well, sounds like a $500 extra.
3) I see the 13" still has a HDD at 5400 RMP, if the MBP has the same thing I will be very disappointed 7200 should be standard.
4) Thunderbolt is nice but will not see much use for some time as everything else will now need to catch up. If I can add it to my Mac Pro via PCI card + external drives then it will make sense for me. I am aware of the other uses but again that will be some time before we see them.
5) DVD player - I think the time has come to remove it, if still required for some people buy the external one. Give more battery and thinner case.

I will be one of the first inline tomorrow morning hoping to get a new MBP 17". May need to order it online depending on what the Apple Store has in stock. Can't wait for midnight to see the official specs on the apple site.

The irony of this comment is just too rich. Blue-Ray is a joke of a format that has no future. Streaming is where the future is and Apple is wise not to invest in transitional tech such as Blue-Ray.

Agreed, but they had better start rolling out 1080p-video with good bitrates in the iTunes-store then. Also, the iTunes-store in my country currently offers very few films, and what's worse, they're all dubbed. That's insulting, frankly, we're not idiots, we want to see films in their original language. So yeah, streaming is the future, but right now I have no legal way of obtaining a high-quality digital copy of a film I want to watch.

Prepare to be disappointed. From what I've read, Intel does not make any Core series quad cores in the power consumption levels needed for notebooks.

I think what you meant to say is "Apples" power consumption levels, there are plenty of laptops that have quad cores with dual threads from Intel. Now they do only get a few hours on a battery but I would take a quad core and 8 hours vs. 10 which is what we are hearing they will be.

Why not? It's a Macbook PRO it should have an optical drive. If you don't want the optical drive then get an Air.

I'm so damn sick of this argument. I'm a pro. I run an ad agency. I work with clients, vendors, producers, printers, etc. all the time. None of them – none – are using optical discs to move files around. Printers all have web portals where you can upload your press-ready files directly to their production department. Video production houses all email me links to H264 video I can preview online. Audio production houses have been using aiff and MP3 for years. Magazines all use web-based ad-send applications.

What's the attachment, seriously? Because I'll tell you one thing: my clients sure as hell aren't asking for CDs. As a pro, I would take a second SSD or more battery life over an optical drive any day of the week.

Now here's the real rub: the slot-loading superdrive sucks. It's slow as dirt. If you're a one of these weird video pros in an Amish community that still uses tons of DVDs then you wouldn't be happy with the performance of the superdrive and you'd buy a speedy 3rd party external anyway.

It's interesting to note that the displayport 1.2 standard actually supports data bit rate of 20Gbps according to wikipedia (if I understand the article correctly). So, thunderbolt may turn out to be a 20Gbps, not a 10Gbps one. That's lotsa data!!

There has to be something wrong with the screen resolution data. Using a lower res screen than the Air doesn't make any sense. It should be exactly the same panel.

While a DisplayPort implementation of LightPeak sounds interesting I almost always work with an external display so I'll have to buy some sort of LightPeak hub to avoid blocking the port with my display cable. The USB shaped port I'd seen pictured seemed like a better idea having instant backward compatibility and ease of training newbies that they should use this port for "stuff".

I think the optical drive will survive 2011 and vanish in 2012 (perhaps living on for one revision of the 17" MBP like the ExpressCard slot did when most Macs moved to SD slots.

It's extremely disappointing to see Best Buy predicting a major price increase for the 17" MBP. Some of us just want a bigger screen.

BlueRay has a place in home theatres where screens are enormous, audio frequently 5.1 or better and lighting carefully controlled. Anyone who builds such a room isn't going to stand for compression artifacts, jaggies or flat sound.

In my mind, when the screen is only a foot wide, as in a notebook computer, the need for BlueRay just isn't there.

It's extremely disappointing to see Best Buy predicting a major price increase for the 17" MBP. Some of us just want a bigger screen.

The price increase is relative... the base model will probably start with i7 and 8gigs of ram. So if that is what you mean by a price increase then you are correct. I would assume that configuration will be slightly less than it is today.

I'm so damn sick of this argument. I'm a pro. I run an ad agency. I work with clients, vendors, producers, printers, etc. all the time. None of them none are using optical discs to move files around. Printers all have web portals where you can upload your press-ready files directly to their production department. Video production houses all email me links to H264 video I can preview online. Audio production houses have been using aiff and MP3 for years. Magazines all use web-based ad-send applications.

What's the attachment, seriously? Because I'll tell you one thing: my clients sure as hell aren't asking for CDs. As a pro, I would take a second SSD or more battery life over an optical drive any day of the week.

Now here's the real rub: the slot-loading superdrive sucks. It's slow as dirt. If you're a one of these weird video pros in an Amish community that still uses tons of DVDs then you wouldn't be happy with the performance of the superdrive and you'd buy a speedy 3rd party external anyway.

I can understand your sentiment regarding the optical drive, but optical drives are STILL relevant in 2011. I would gladly have them be obsolete in 2-3 years' time, but I do not see it happening.

I often purchase video media from foreign countries on DVD (I have a regionless player and use VLC), and that media is NOT available digitally for US consumers to purchase. In the cases of some UK television shows like Doctor Who, which are wildly popular outside of the UK, you can purchase them digitally from Amazon.com because they are re-broadcasted/produced through BBC America. There are dozens of shows I cannot purchase from UK or Japan when they are released for streaming on the each respective nation's streaming websites for sale in the same way that I can popular shows. Should only popular shows that are picked up by American networks be accessible?

I also have found that professional educational media has not gone digital.
I have purchased translation certification training books which come with audio CDs (A FEW have digital files online to enhance the physical book in the absence of a CD), and almost none of them offer online options.

I think if media and content providers globally allowed us to easily purchase from each other, I might do away with optical drives so easily. However, video content providers are not likely to do so due to the profits they earn in the DVD mark-up sales and each country's particular licensing fees.

I can understand your sentiment regarding the optical drive, but optical drives are STILL relevant in 2011. I would gladly have them be obsolete in 2-3 years' time, but I do not see it happening.

I often purchase video media from foreign countries on DVD (I have a regionless player and use VLC), and that media is NOT available digitally for US consumers to purchase. In the cases of some UK television shows like Doctor Who, which are wildly popular outside of the UK, you can purchase them digitally from Amazon.com because they are re-broadcasted/produced through BBC America. There are dozens of shows I cannot purchase from UK or Japan when they are released for streaming on the each respective nation's streaming websites for sale in the same way that I can popular shows. Should only popular shows that are picked up by American networks be accessible?

I also have found that professional educational media has not gone digital.
I have purchased translation certification training books which come with audio CDs (A FEW have digital files online to enhance the physical book in the absence of a CD), and almost none of them offer online options.

I think if media and content providers globally allowed us to easily purchase from each other, I might do away with optical drives so easily. However, video content providers are not likely to do so due to the profits they earn in the DVD mark-up sales and each country's particular licensing fees.

You can buy an external DVD drive
You can't buy thinness or and external GPU.

iPhone 4S 64GB, Black, soon to be sold in favor of a Nokia Lumia 920Early 2010 MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, soon to be replaced with a Retina MacBook Pro, or an Asus U500

I can understand your sentiment regarding the optical drive, but optical drives are STILL relevant in 2011. I would gladly have them be obsolete in 2-3 years' time, but I do not see it happening.

I often purchase video media from foreign countries on DVD (I have a regionless player and use VLC), and that media is NOT available digitally for US consumers to purchase. In the cases of some UK television shows like Doctor Who, which are wildly popular outside of the UK, you can purchase them digitally from Amazon.com because they are re-broadcasted/produced through BBC America. There are dozens of shows I cannot purchase from UK or Japan when they are released for streaming on the each respective nation's streaming websites for sale in the same way that I can popular shows. Should only popular shows that are picked up by American networks be accessible?

I also have found that professional educational media has not gone digital.
I have purchased translation certification training books which come with audio CDs (A FEW have digital files online to enhance the physical book in the absence of a CD), and almost none of them offer online options.

I think if media and content providers globally allowed us to easily purchase from each other, I might do away with optical drives so easily. However, video content providers are not likely to do so due to the profits they earn in the DVD mark-up sales and each country's particular licensing fees.

Most people are not watching foreign DVDs. Most people are not watching training DVDs. Most people are not using optical discs anymore. I'm sorry that you seem to be stuck using them, but you can't expect Apple to hold back innovation in the name of supporting legacy formats. It's contrary to everything the Mac platform is about.

Apple, here is what I want: a gaming laptop. I spent nearly $3K on my 2009 17" MacBook Pro and I have to play it on medium settings at a low resolution. Please offer us a gaming video chipset this year!

Yes, I know, such performance cuts into battery life. That is why we can toggle between performance and energy saver in the power options on the Mac.

It would be nice to do CPU intensive tasks on my MacBook Pro while on the road for work related stuff, and gaming at home.